Some 46 Aer Lingus pilots have been at home for almost six months and have not flown for the company despite being on full pay, it emerged yesterday.
The pilots stopped flying the company's BAe 146 fleet of aircraft in late October but have not been retrained on replacement Airbus aircraft because of a union dispute.
The chief executive of Aer Lingus, Mr Willie Walsh, said yesterday the dispute would end up costing the airline between €5 million and €6 million if it continued for a whole year. He was speaking at a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport.
"It must be addressed. It is clearly not sustainable," he said. He described the idea of pilots being paid for being at home as "completely unacceptable".
However, a Fine Gael senator at the meeting, Mr Feargal Browne, said the pilots and their families were being unfairly treated by the airline.
A spokesman for the Irish Airline Pilots' Association, Mr Michael Landers, said last night that it was not the pilots' fault the situation had developed in this way. He said 19 of the pilots would be attending an Airbus training scheme next Monday.
He said others were objecting to the training scheme because it was for co-pilots rather than captains.
"That is not acceptable. The pilots having been sitting at home because they haven't been given any work to do by the airline," he claimed. The airline last night said it had made attempts to retrain the pilots but a work-to-rule had made this impossible.
The airline said that any captains who agreed to work as co-pilots in future would retain their captain's salary.
Mr Brian Dunne, the airline's chief financial officer, said the recent decision to phase out the BAe fleet and replace it with Airbus aircraft had created a surplus of pilots at the airline.
He estimated the airline needed between 375 and 380 pilots but it currently had 455.
The Labour Court yesterday said it would appoint an independent party to consider the issue of whether Aer Lingus had a surplus of pilots. This follows two days of talks at the court.
The independent party appointed by the Labour Court is due to report back in late May. The court has asked that any industrial action be withdrawn in the meantime.
The situation could worsen at the airline because Aer Lingus is due to phase out some of its Boeing aircraft soon and this could leave about 100 pilots requiring retraining or redeployment.